The PGA Tour announced Wednesday that Camilo Villegas has been voted the new chairman of the PGA Tour’s player advisory council by his tour peers.
Villegas, 42, had been named to the PAC board last month. He beat out Kevin Streelman for the position. The PGA Tour also announced that Villegas will replace Jordan Spieth – who took over Rory McIlroy’s vacated seat – beginning in 2025.
The PAC works with the tour’s board and commissioner Jay Monahan on issues affecting the league. Villegas will join Patrick Cantlay, Peter Malnati, Adam Scott, Webb Simpson and Tiger Woods as player directors.
Villegas authored a career comeback last year, highlighted by capturing the Butterfield Bermuda Championship for his first win in nine years. A product of Columbia, Villegas has been competing on the tour full-time since 2006. He has five career wins and was a member of the 2009 International Presidents Cup team.
Last month the PGA Tour announced it had come to an agreement with the Strategic Sports Group for private-equity investment in the tour. The tour announced that the deal with SSG will allow for co-investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in the future; however, talks have stalled between the PIF and tour, and PIF’s renewed recruiting of tour players – highlighted by the December defection of Jon Rahm to LIV – led to hurt feelings on the tour side.PIF, meanwhile, looked at the tour’s solicitation with other private equity deals as a betrayal of sorts to the June 6 framework agreement.
Tour players had a meeting earlier this week at the Cognizant Classic regarding those negotiations. Even if an agreement between the PGA Tour and PIF comes together, there’s a chance professional golf will not be unified for another one to two years, sources tell Golf Digest.
